Investigative Analyst @ManhattanInst 🏛️ Disturber of the Peace 🧙♂️ TCB ⚡ Nature Boy 🌲Views My Own 🧠 RTs ≠ Endorsements 🔁
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Aug 19 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
🚨 BREAKING: Microsoft employees and "community members" calling themselves the "Worker Intifada" have established a "liberated zone," also known as an encampment, on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington.
"We demand Microsoft cut all ties with the entire economy of genocide immediately."
Aug 14 • 14 tweets • 8 min read
🚨 UN-Backed Feminist Education Program Features Mahmoud Khalil Praising Terrorist Icon and Urging Student “Revolution”
Earlier this week, I attended Transform Education’s From Classrooms to Revolution, featuring Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil.
What’s troubling is that Transform Education is part of UNGEI, the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative. Instead of focusing on education, the event promoted student “revolution” as a moral duty and necessity.
Khalil praised PFLP terrorist Ghassan Kanafani as an inspiration, framed education as “resistance,” and lauded Columbia’s militant campus activism and mutual aid networks that supported students during arrests. He described carving protest chants into his prison bunk, hailed students as the “moral compass” of radical change, and even preached about “positive masculinity.”
Given the militancy of Columbia’s protests, it’s alarming that a women’s education program would choose Khalil as its keynote speaker.
Sapphire, a young feminist activist from Trinidad and Tobago, opened From Classrooms to Revolution by declaring that in many societies, young people are “viewed as powerless, entitled, or in some cases even lazy” and “expected to obey authority without question.” She countered that “students have led many of history’s greatest protests” — from the Soweto uprisings to today’s campus encampments — often “at great personal risk.”
She said the event was “a celebration of student activism, countering the narrative that student activists are deviants,” and closed by declaring, “We are agents of change, shifting the world order away from a movement of extractivism, capitalism, and oppression toward collective liberation, freedom, and justice for all.”
It is certainly surprising to hear such far-left, anti-capitalist rhetoric — the kind you’d expect at a socialist rally, not from a UN-backed education program.
Aug 9 • 6 tweets • 5 min read
🧵 DSA Co-Chair Hails Zohran Mamdani as “Generational Talent” and Blueprint for Socialist Power in America
At the Socialism 2025 conference, Democratic Socialists of America Co-Chair Ashik Siddique painted a sweeping vision for the future — one built around Zohran Mamdani’s rise from DSA’s ranks to the brink of becoming New York City’s mayor.
Siddique called Mamdani “a unique generational talent” and said his campaign proves the DSA can “have people like Zohran all over the country.” He openly embraced naming “class enemies” and promised that with Mamdani in office, socialists could “confront capital where it matters” in America’s wealthiest city.
The DSA leader credited Mamdani’s win to years of post-Bernie DSA organizing, strong union support, and the group’s coordinated “socialists in office” blocs nationwide. He called the primary victory “the biggest thing for the socialist left in the past century,” praising Mamdani as an “organizer in office” who joins strikes, hunger fasts, and direct actions.
“We are trying to build the party and in many ways, we’re already doing it.”
Not the wildest thread you will read today but a revealing look at how DSA built its power and where it plans to take it next.
DSA Co-Chair Ashik Siddique laid out the group’s strategy for using the Democratic Party as a launching pad for an independent socialist party.
Siddique said DSA is a “big tent” that includes members who want to reform Democrats, those calling for a clean break, and others pursuing a “dirty break” using the party’s ballot line until they are forced out.
He described the prevailing “party surrogate model” as running DSA candidates under the Democratic label while building the infrastructure for a future socialist party. Representing the DSA’s Groundwork Caucus, Siddique made the goal explicit: “We are trying to build the party, and in many ways we’re already doing it.”
It is important to understand that Siddique is the DSA’s respectable frontman, the buttoned up figure they present so attention drifts away from members calling to abolish the family or boasting that New York City is flying people in for trans healthcare and footing the bill.
It is an open admission that the DSA’s long game is to hollow out the Democratic Party from the inside until it is ready to replace it or compete against it directly, which, as you will hear later, is exactly what they do in deep blue areas.
Aug 6 • 4 tweets • 5 min read
🔥DSA Organizer in Texas: We’re Embracing "Direct Confrontation and Contradiction with the State"
This is Saya Clarke. Trans rights activist. DSA organizer. Former addict and sex worker. Co-chair of DSA North Texas.
She took the mic at the now-viral “United Struggles” panel at Socialism 2025 — and delivered a blunt, radical vision of DSA’s work in one of the reddest states in the country.
In Dallas, Clarke helped...
-Pass a trans sanctuary resolution
-Build an underground-aboveground coalition of queer, labor, anti-war, and Palestinian groups
-Spread Marxist feminist political education
-Compile a survival guide for trans and queer services in North Texas
She says her chapter is embracing “direct confrontation and contradiction with the state.”
Then she runs through the latest laws in Texas...
-Retroactive bans on ID changes (Refers to laws prohibiting or reversing changes to legal documents like birth certificates and driver’s licenses)
-Mandated detransition coverage for insurers (If insurance covers gender-affirming care, it must also cover detransition procedures — including retroactively)
-Legalized conversion therapy (Texas never banned it — and “conversion therapy” here includes talk therapy or parental guidance that doesn’t affirm gender identity)
-Stripped protections from LGBTQ youth (This means banning gender-affirming medical interventions for minors — puberty blockers, hormones, surgeries)
“Even my own documents are now illegal.”
Clarke describes life as a trans person under "hostile" law:
“The state is actively hostile to my and my loved ones’ way of life.”
She draws a parallel between abortion bans and trans repression, saying lawmakers now use the same “framework of cruelty and denial of dignity” to block “self-determination.”
On the failure of liberal politics:
“We’re living in the unfortunate aftermath of the flawed piecemeal approach to sustaining trans life by a political class that wants you to work when you're sick, that considers pitching a tent to survive a crime against property, that happily shuffled right on immigration, legal or otherwise — the effects of which we are now seeing, that allow police to destroy encampments and arrest students protesting a generational crime against humanity, and that continues to vote to send money to a genocidal colonial ethno-state that livestreams its ethnic cleansing campaign and lashes out at its neighbors.”
She challenges the notion of sanctuary.
“So the word ‘sanctuary’ really does sound great, right? ‘Sanctus’ means holy, and early use was in reference to a church or other sacred place where a fugitive was immune by the law of the medieval church from arrest. Interesting, right? You are still a fugitive and protected by law. Do we remember who makes laws? Do we know how little a supposed law matters when a fascist is out for blood?”
Clarke calls for international solidarity and a unification of all struggles around bodily autonomy.
“We must reorient our politics around bodily autonomy. It is the one feature that unites struggle that connects the children of Gaza being starved to migrants being kidnapped to trans people searching for a truly safe place. Our struggle is by necessity international.”
Aug 4 • 6 tweets • 7 min read
🚨 “Zohran is literally attempting to do what conservatives say we want to do, which is provide gender affirming care to anyone who wants it for free. We're gonna fly people in and pay for their hotel rooms.”
That’s Daniel Goulden, a member of NYC DSA’s Steering Committee, speaking on a panel DSA just uploaded from last month’s Socialism 2025 conference.
Goulden worked on Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, helped write the trans policy platform, and says he regularly meets with Zohran and his staff.
“We collaborated with the Zohran Mamdani campaign on his trans rights platform, and what we explicitly wanted to do was use the power of New York City to provide free gender affirming care—and I say free in case insurance companies decide to boot us off—free gender affirming care not just to people in New York City but across the country.”
“DSA has regular meetings with him, let alone his team. His policy director is my friend. I've been working with his campaign manager for well over a year.”
This isn’t hypothetical. DSA operatives are openly planning to turn New York City into a national hub for trans healthcare—flying people in, paying for hotels, mailing prescriptions across state lines—and doing it on the taxpayer’s dime.
And it’s not just about healthcare. It’s about power.
“With Zohran, we’re in basically the best possible position to seize state power.”
They’re not hiding it. They’re posting it proudly. The Democratic Socialists of America are building a machine—rooted in radicalism, empowered by city government, and led by a man now poised to run the largest city in America.
“We wrote the platform with him… now he’s going to be mayor.”
In this clip, NYC DSA’s Daniel Goulden spells it out. Zohran Mamdani didn’t just accept support—he let DSA write his trans policy platform. Their goal? Turn NYC into the national distribution hub for gender transition procedures.
“What we explicitly wanted to do was use the power of New York City to provide free gender affirming care and I say free in case insurance companies decide to boot us off.. Free gendering affirming care, not just to people in New York City but across the country.”
They're planning to override red states by any means necessary.
“There’s no reason at all that we can’t use telehealth and mailing prescriptions to people across the country to undermine state bans.”
Goulden lays out just how deeply NYC DSA is embedded in Mamdani’s campaign.
“The Zohran campaign was always eager to work with us… the team was so happy to work with us on this.”
“All of a sudden my work shifts from being on the outside to thinking about how to utilize the fairly significant municipal power of New York City.”
“The model we used in New York is 100% replicatable [SIC] both in terms of our trans organizing, but also getting Zohran elected mayor.”
This is the plan. In their own words.
Aug 2 • 16 tweets • 15 min read
🚨 The Family Must Go: DSA Panel Pushes Full-Scale Cultural Revolution
“I want to perform abortions at a church before it’s all said and done.”
“The only real difference between marriage and prostitution is the price and the duration of the contract.”
“Sex work and marriage can’t exist without each other—they’re two sides of the same coin.”
“We argue for abolition of the family in general… the institution of the family acts as part of the carceral system.”
“When we talk about family abolition, we’re talking about the abolition of the economic unit… all of our material needs taken care of by the collective.”
I don’t know what the National Democratic Socialists of America are thinking—but they just uploaded a panel to their YouTube channel from Socialism 2025 called “The Left and the Family,” and no surprise, it is anti-family, anti-children, and deeply disturbing.
The panelists:
– Emily Janakiram, writer and organizer with New York City for Abortion Rights
– Katie Gibson, Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago
– Eman Abdelhadi, University of Chicago sociologist (and somehow the most reasonable one)
This is their “future of care”: abolish the family, collectivize child-rearing, normalize sex work, and radicalize children into the movement.
It feels like the Democratic Socialists of America are drunk off their Zohran Mamdani win—and now they want to burn the whole house down.
Eman Abdelhadi is the "moderate" on the family abolition panel—but that’s more strategic, not an ideological compromise. Her argument is clear: incremental material wins like universal pre-K are worth pursuing only as steps toward a more radical future—one in which the family, capitalism, and liberal society are dismantled entirely.
“We live in a shitty, horrible-ass, no-good society… We might fight for material improvements… under a system that is frankly horrifying.”
She frames family abolition as a “liberatory horizon,” something to be held alongside short-term policy goals. The danger, in her view, is not being too radical—but becoming satisfied with reforms and mistaking them for real liberation. Her concern is being “bought off.”
“Otherwise we fall into a liberal tendency… to be like, okay, we’re bought off now.”
She doesn't reject reform. She co-opts it—to normalize revolutionary goals over time and shift the Overton window without triggering backlash. It's an explicit call for ideological patience and strategic duality.
“They're not two things to reconcile. They're two things to hold at once.”
This is not moderation. It's a roadmap for revolution by way of reforms.
Jul 23 • 5 tweets • 5 min read
Mahmoud Khalil is back in the spotlight — first meeting with Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill, then speaking at the “Stop ICE Abductions and Block the Bombs” event tonight.
This is the same guy who led campus building takeovers and spoke in favor of violent resistance. Not exactly someone politcians should be elevating.
American Friends Service Committee's Nusaiba Mubarak introduced activist Mahmoud Khalil with incendiary language accusing the U.S. government of politically motivated repression.
“Mahmoud was effectively kidnapped by plainclothes federal immigration agents and wrongfully detained for over 100 days without charge, because of his advocacy against Israel’s ongoing genocide.”
Mubarak painted a sweeping picture of persecution.
“Activists… have faced increasing retaliation, including deportation threats, visa revocations, detention, and heightened surveillance.”
Khalil echoed the same framing, portraying his ICE detention as part of a coordinated campaign:
“It’s part of a broader campaign to silence dissent, to criminalize solidarity, to repress the movement… and the U.S. government’s complicity in genocide.”
He claimed he was targeted “For my freedom of speech… for being Palestinian.”
It’s mentioned in passing, but we learn that Khalil wasn’t lobbying alone—he was joined in these meetings by Brad Parker, Associate Director of Policy at the Center for Constitutional Rights, a group known for defending radical activism under the banner of civil liberties.
Jul 21 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
“Death to America.”
That’s the phrase 20-year-old American activist Calla Walsh chants from Tehran—“Marg bar Âmrikâ”—while praising “all the martyrs” and glorifying the “axis of resistance,” Iran’s alliance with terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
“Glory to all the martyrs, glory to the axis of resistance. May we see victory within our lifetimes. Marg bar Âmrikâ.”
If she loves the “axis of resistance” so much, she’s welcome to stay there.
This isn’t just fringe rhetoric—Walsh has acted on her ideology here at home, becoming the “resistance” herself through direct action with Palestine Action US, now rebranded as Unity of Fields.
In November 2023, she was arrested as part of the “Merrimack 4,” a militant group that attacked the Elbit Systems facility in New Hampshire. The site—owned by an Israeli defense contractor—was broken into, vandalized, spray-painted, and smoke-bombed. Walsh and her comrades climbed the roof, livestreamed the raid, and were caught with an incendiary device. The FBI later seized her phone and opened an investigation into her ties to Palestine Action US and funder Fergie Chambers.
Jul 18 • 12 tweets • 14 min read
🧵With Zohran Mamdani’s primary win shaking up New York politics, people are finally paying attention to the socialist movement in America again. It’s long overdue.
Yes, the landscape is fractured — a maze of groups, egos, ideological turf wars, and purity tests. But one organization is crystal clear about what it wants: revolution. Enter Freedom Road Socialist Organization...
To catch people up, we’re taking a look at FRSO’s May 29, 2025 broadcast — a national event marking their 40th anniversary, where they laid their revolutionary agenda bare.
“The U.S. is a prison house of nations, and it’s time to open the prison gates.”
“Capitalism is a failed system and it must be replaced with socialism… the rule of the working class.”
They reject gradualism and mock nonviolence.
“We are not the turn the other cheek club.”
“When we encounter fires, we're not going to try to put them out… we're going to try to bring fuel to them.”
They take credit for the George Floyd riots: “We were part of leading the largest Black-led rebellion in history.”
And they’re not shy about the endgame!
“We believe we can build a new party… to lead the working class in overthrowing the 1%.”
“The working class can and will reorganize society… free of private exploitation, oppression, war, and destruction.”
This isn’t just rhetoric. FRSO is active — from college campuses to labor unions to street protests. They are organizing for power, not policy tweaks.
Crisley Carpio opened by calling FRSO “a group that is serious about revolution and applying revolutionary science to the United States.” The event, she said, would reflect on “our past, our present… and how we’re gonna define our future and define our own destiny.”
She linked the group’s roots to anti-war radicals inspired by “national liberation movements in Vietnam and in China led by communist revolutionaries.”
Carpio highlighted FRSO’s ideological resilience: “Disheartened by the fall of the Soviet Union, many revolutionaries across the U.S. gave up — but not us... We resisted attempts to liquidate Marxism-Leninism… and came out of it hardened and sealed.”
She noted the group’s experience with FBI repression and survival strategy: “We withstood FBI raids… Our organization actually has a methodical way of dealing with repression.”
What she didn’t say outright — but clearly laid out — was a roadmap of the night’s presenters: veterans of the "anti-war" left, labor organizers, national liberation activists, and the emerging front against Trump.
Who is this and where may you know them from?
Carpio is a longtime activist, member of FRSO’s Central Committee, and chair of its student commission. A former Students for a Democratic Society organizer, she was also one of the “Tampa 5” arrested after protesting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Jul 9 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Here are all the clips I pulled of @UHouston’s David McNally, the Cullen Distinguished Professor of History and Business, speaking at Socialism 2025.
Yes, this is really a "distinguished" professor. 🧵
Watch, share, and send to any UH student or alum you know. 🐾
McNally's Vision for the Radical Reform of the University of Houston
Last week, I sat in on Refuse Fascism’s organizing call for their upcoming four days of protest (July 1–4). Don’t be fooled by the name—Refuse Fascism isn’t some grassroots movement. It’s a front for the Revolutionary Communist Party, funded by the Alliance for Global Justice (yes, the same group that pushed $54.2 million in 2020 to fuel radical unrest).
The playbook is simple: appear just mainstream enough to lure in the curious—then radicalize them. The real mission? Mass mobilization against anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders. President Trump is just the most convenient “fascist” to rally against.
Buckle up—this thread is a wild, an often comical tour through Sunsara Taylor’s latest attempt to normalize Communism.🧵
This exchange came near the end of the call, but it was one of the most revealing moments—exposing just how little transparency there is behind this group as it works to mobilize people under a vague anti-fascist banner.
For what it’s worth, I actually signed up through Bluesky—clearly part of their strategy to target disaffected leftists who fled Twitter.
When asked directly whether she was anti-democracy, Sunsara Taylor responded not with denial, but deflection—accusing critics of “red-baiting” and “serving fascism.”
She says:
“Even if I was 100% against democracy… that should still not be a reason for you to not work with Refuse Fascism.”
Let that sink in.
Taylor then goes on to clarify that she’s not a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party—just an “active revcom” and a follower of Bob Avakian, whom she calls the “architect of the new communism.” She explicitly identifies as a revolutionary communist. Important to note that Refuse Fascism always partially works out of the Revolution Communist Party "Revolution Books."
She defends working across ideological lines, not because she supports democracy, but because she sees mass mobilization as a means to unseat the existing system, not reform it.
This is the woman organizing mass protests in the name of “saving democracy.”
Jun 29 • 22 tweets • 27 min read
🔥 "Legal Counterinsurgency & Repression of the Left"
Last week, a panel of radical activists and "legal advocates" gathered to frame the global enforcement of anti-terror laws as nothing more than “fascist lawfare” used to repress “anti-colonial, anti-Zionist, and anti-imperialist resistance.” Their words speak volumes:
“They don’t want our movements taking over buildings... occupying places… creating independent, liberated spaces.”
“We’re still being found not guilty by juries for smashing up Israeli weapons factories…”
"Samidoun was not a threat to the U.S. government in any way."
“Hamas represents Palestinian dignity. If it didn’t exist, the Palestinian people would invent it.”
“The United States is an illegitimate state.”
“Cops are the ruling elites’ brown shirts.”
Moderated and co-sponsored by figures tied to the National Lawyers Guild, CUNY4Palestine, and The Right to Reject Zionism Coalition, the event wasn’t subtle—it was a manifesto of open defiance toward Western law, democratic process, and liberal norms. 🧵
Whether it’s Hamas or the New People’s Army—the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines—this panel plays footsie with well-established, designated terrorist organizations. As groups like Samidoun are increasingly recognized as terrorist fronts, let’s be clear from the outset:
We’re not just dealing with fringe activists—we’re dealing with ideological revisionists openly aligning themselves with terrorist movements under the banner of “anti-colonial resistance.” That’s the framework they’re selling. And the more you listen, the clearer it becomes: this isn't about liberation. It's about legitimizing violent revolution.
I’ll be jumping around quite a bit in this Zoom webinar — starting local, then working outward. Since this is an international call, I’m front-loading the parts Americans most need to see. Feel free to skip around — in fact, I encourage it.
If I had to give people homework, I’d say: watch Kamau Franklin and Max Geller. They’re two of the clearest voices in this discussion — not just in what they say, but in what they openly admit.
I’ve covered many of these figures and "movements" before, so if you want more context, feel free to check out my earlier reporting.
Jun 22 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
BREAKING: National Students for Justice in Palestine have released a statement on the bombing of Iranian nuclear sites — and it’s extreme.
They call for the end of America, defend Iran’s “right” to nuclear weapons, and accuse the U.S. of being a malicious propagandist.
Full Statement below 🧵
Jun 17 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
Reposting this. The original—posted March 12, 2025—got locked thanks to coordinated fake reports. Funny how easy it is to silence something
Some of Mahmoud Khalil's lawyers are from CUNY CLEAR. If only someone had been recording them for the past few years. Oh wait, that person was me.
Here is one of Mahmoud Khalil's lawyers, Shazza Abboushi Dallal, from a CUNY CLEAR training that I snuck into and recorded.
"Another question: what if somebody just pretends complete ignorance to Hamas, don't know what you're talking about.
So I think this question is really like Yeah, I, I would answer the same way. I mean, first of all, saying I don't know when you do know, or feigning ignorance when that's not the reality, could be construed as a misrepresentation or a lie, and you find yourself in the sort of situation that you wanna avoid that we were speaking about earlier of criminal and potential immigration consequences flowing.
And that's why, you know, silence is just, is better. Better and more protective for you."
I can't tell you how many of these sorts of trainings I have attended where legal clinics like CUNY CLEAR urged foreign student activists to be smarter about what they said publicly. They knew this day could come one day. It is here now.
The Legal Rights teach-in where these videos came from can be found here, and I think many would be served in watching it. You will realize quite quickly that Khalil has most certainly violated immigration law and the terms of his residency here in the United States.
"We want to make sure you know [about things that] will create risks for you if you're not a citizen, so that's inciting, advocating, or declaring public approval or support for terrorist activity..."
Angie Marie, one of the more militant voices in the March to Gaza convoy — who has celebrated political violence and dismissed the Capital Jewish Museum assassination as a "false flag" — posted a tearful video announcing she’s quitting the mission and heading home.
“I’m just not in a mentally good place,” she said, breaking down after days of tension in Egypt. “This has been scary… an emotional roller coaster.”
After years of glorifying violence — including cheering the attempted assassination of Donald Trump — she now says she "did not come here to fight with Egypt" and is stepping aside to let others carry on.
For someone who always claimed she wanted all the smoke, it turns out she couldn’t handle the fire.
Here is her commentary about the Capital Jewish Museum shooting in D.C.
"Even if this was true, I would say like good. Anybody associated with the Israeli government should be worried and in fear of their lives.”
Last night, I attended the ACLU’s Know Your Rights training ahead of Saturday’s so-called “No Kings Day” protest.
While the event claimed to be rooted in nonviolence, much of the rhetoric told a different story. There was heavy emphasis on “risk,” evading warrants, pepper spray grenades, and counter-surveillance tactics—all under the thin veneer of civil liberties education. At times, it felt less like a training for peaceful protest and more like a how-to for militant activists looking to sidestep law enforcement.
The political bias was hard to miss. Organizers referred to the Army’s 250th anniversary parade as a “Trump military parade”, framing it as a dystopian show of force. They didn’t shy away from legally gray areas either—encouraging tactics for spreading information about ICE raids that risk veering into obstruction of justice.
Here’s a short supercut from the training. Watch for yourself!
Noticed Attiya Latif had "she/they" in her Zoom display name, though she didn’t mention it when introducing herself. Interesting background—she’s worked with Amnesty International and CAIR.
Jun 7 • 27 tweets • 22 min read
🚨 This video was leaked to me.
It features SUPER—the same University of Washington student group that occupied the engineering building, caused over $1M in damage, and lit dumpster fires to create campus chaos—now hosting a campus event praising Hamas, Hezbollah, and the October 7 attacks.
“Armed struggle is a scientific necessity.”
“Colonialism will only yield when confronted with greater violence.”
“These are not names to be afraid of: Hamas. Islamic Jihad. The PFLP. Hezbollah.”
This was Thursday, June 5, 2025. Do they sound like they’re slowing down—or trying to radicalize others?🧵
The event begins with logistical “housekeeping” and a content warning, immediately setting a self-styled activist tone. Attendees are instructed to mask indoors “to keep each other safe,” and COVID protocols are noted. Then comes a familiar phrase:
“Some of the content may be triggering. Please make sure to take care of your needs... No one’s gonna judge you.”
SUPER then lays out the agenda after introducing who they are, which includes a glorification of October 7 and a session explicitly titled “Armed Resistance as a Scientific Necessity.”
“We want to talk about Al-Aqsa Flood... and why we support Al-Aqsa Flood as a day of decolonization and liberation—and as a fundamental turning point within the world's history.”
“We’re here to talk about armed resistance as a necessity, historical, determined part of struggles for liberation.”
The rest of the night promised discussions on “Western propaganda,” the “genocidal goals of Israel,” and the “wins” of Palestinian and regional armed groups.
May 24 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Friendly reminder: @ucsantabarbara hosted the End of Empire and the Future of Freedom conference, where a parade of unhinged social media “influencers” took the mic—like the now-infamous Guy Christensen:
“People want to police the way Palestinians resist. Do you condemn Hamas? I’m not one to judge. They have the right to resist violently!”
(Video from November 2024)
@ucsantabarbara Found the original post. You already know I stay tracking these anti-American, anti-civilization lunatics.
“After white supremacist, capitalist, ableist patriarchy—like get rid of that, we’ll probably be fine.”
I attended @UCBerkeley’s Sheroes in Leadership panel featuring top DEI staff.
If this is what passes for leadership, maybe it’s time to defund Berkeley.
The panelists aren’t fringe voices — they hold real power and influence:
Ché L. Abram – Chief of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, UC Berkeley School of Public Health
Ding-Jo Currie, Ph.D. – Distinguished Faculty in Higher Ed Leadership at CSU Fullerton and member of UC Berkeley’s Executive Leadership Academy Advisory Board
Amber Johnson, Ph.D. – Assistant Vice Chancellor & Chief of Staff, UC Berkeley Division of Equity & Inclusion
Currie is the outlier here — more old-school. Her background is rooted in fostering multiculturalism, which I’d argue is fundamentally different from today’s DEI ideology. Still, she seems committed to the broader project, even as it’s taken on a far more radical tone.
May 4 • 22 tweets • 20 min read
I attended the AAUP All-Member Meeting on May Day to get a clearer sense of the national agenda. What I saw was a coordinated push to escalate on multiple fronts—through disruption, summer direct-action trainings, and broader coalition-building.
“We have to escalate our tactics… Arguments alone will not win. We have to meet force with force.”
“We need to make the actions more disruptive—so it’s not business as usual.”
In the lead-up to the meeting, I’d read an AAUP letter from the University of Virginia, authored by Ashon Crawley, that invoked everything from “genocide” in Gaza to sweeping claims that the university system itself is white supremacy—and even dismissed “intellectual diversity” as a right-wing conspiracy. The local chapter was clearly radical. But was the national organization any different?
Had the AAUP gone off the rails at both the local and national levels? As usual, I had to see it for myself…
At the May Day All-Member Meeting, AAUP President Todd Wolfson made it crystal clear: the organization is no longer focused on defending academic freedom in any neutral or traditional sense. It’s now openly embracing street-level activism, political confrontation, and radical organizing.
“There’s a narrative fight we need to take on. But then the last fight—and the fight I really want to lean into right now—is the fight in the streets.”
“Arguments alone will not win. We have to meet force with force.”
Rather than championing scholarship or viewpoint diversity, Wolfson touted protest actions and a growing activist base:
“We think that we have grown by about 25% of membership.”
“We had an action on the 19th of February, another in DC on the 25th of February, an action on the 8th of April, a powerful culminating action on the 17th of April…”
But even coordinated days of protest aren’t enough for this new AAUP:
“Days of action aren't enough. They also aren't the solution. We need to figure out what comes next.”
This isn’t just mission drift—it’s a full-on redefinition of what AAUP stands for. What was once a defender of academic freedom is now organizing for “force” in the streets.
